Over the years, The Kitchen Sisters have zeroed in on Memphis, Tennessee in a big way. The inspiration for that and the inspiration for some of our favorite stories is Knox Phillips.
Davia met Knox in 1997 in Memphis when she was doing casting for Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Rainmaker. She was on the set standing next to a guy. Cool hair, great smile. During the long set up between takes they started talking. About Memphis, about music, about radio. She told him about a new series we were starting to produce for NPR — Lost & Found Sound. Stories about sonic pioneers and people possessed by sound. The guy with the cool hair listens.
“Girl, I think you better come over to the house and meet my parents. My dad, Sam, started the Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records. He recorded Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Howlin’ Wolf.... When he sold Elvis’ contract he and my mother, Becky, used the money to start the first all-girl radio station in the nation, WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts.”
Nikki was on a plane to Memphis the next day and we drove to the Phillips family house that night. Knox, Sam, Becky and Sam’s girlfriend Sally were all there and the stories started pouring out. We walked in at 7:00 and left after midnight, recording the whole time. Those interviews became the basis of some of the most groundbreaking Kitchen Sisters pieces.
Knox Phillips — producer, promoter of Memphis music, Keeper of his family's legacy, died in April 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic, and never really got his due. His massive spirit, love and music live on.
62 - Black Cake: Emily Dickinson’s Hidden Kitchen
61 – Rattlesden
60 – Milk Cow Blues: The Apple Family Farm and the Indiana Cow Share Association
59 – Weenie Royale: The Impact of the Internment on Japanese American Cooking
58 – The Kiosk Strategy, Lisbon — Hidden Kitchens: War & Peace & Food
57 – War and Peace and Coffee
56 – Operation Hummus and More Stories of War and Peace and Food from Israel and Ramallah
55 – Between Us, Bread and Salt: Lebanon Hidden Kitchens with Kamal Mouzawak
54 — Walking High Steel: Mohawk Ironworkers at the World Trade Towers
53 — Garden Allotments—London’s Kitchen Vision
52 – Hunting & Gathering with Angelo Garro
51 – Harvest on Big Rice Lake
50 – An Unexpected Kitchen: The George Foreman Grill
49 – The Cabyard Kitchen
48 – Kibbe at the Crossroads: Lebanese Cooking in the Mississippi Delta
47 – The Chili Queens of San Antonio
46 – Stubb Stubblefield: The Archangel of BBQ
45 – Hidden Kitchen Mama
44 – Black Chef, White House: African American Cooks in the President’s Kitchen
43 – Carmen Miranda: The Life and Fate of the Brazilian Bombshell
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